After the Hutchinson City Council voted to raise Hutchinson City Manager Enrico Villegas’ total compensation by 25% from 2025 and 31% from his April 2024 contract, the public took notice. It got people talking, with many displeased by the amount of the increase.
The Hutchinson Tribune Editorial Board understands the public’s shock and displeasure, and we’ve carefully examined the situation. There are three main matters in play:
- How much should Hutchinson pay its city manager?
- Is Villegas the right person for the job?
- And what is the right way for Hutchinson City Council to handle the contract?
In Hutchinson’s council-manager form of government, the city manager is essentially the city’s CEO. And the city is a large, complex organization, with a budget of tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of employees, ranging from horticulture to information technology to civil engineering. Given that, the compensation in Villegas’ new contract is not out of line.
By all accounts, Villegas is exactly the type of person Hutchinson needs in the city manager’s role, because he gets things done. He hasn’t been perfect, but then again, who is? At worst, he’s a hard-charger who sometimes fails to read the room properly before taking bold action, like when he floated the idea of Hutchinson absorbing South Hutchinson during the joint meeting with Reno County, South Hutchinson, and Hutchinson last month.
Our hope is that he continues learning how to balance his desire for bold and decisive action with the need to maintain collegial relationships with the other governing bodies and public officials in the county. At his best, he’s a mover and shaker who brings new ideas and makes a strong case for economic development in Hutchinson on the regional and national level. He’s relatively young, so our expectation is that he will continue maturing in his role as city manager. Provided that he chooses to stay in Hutchinson, but that’s anyone’s guess at the present time.
Hutchinson and Reno County need more leaders like that. The folks in Warrensburg, Mo., still sing his praises for the work he did as public works director there. Yes, we made an inquiry or two to find out, and Villegas checks out as one of the best and brightest. Hutchinson needs to do its best to keep him for as long as possible, and a pay increase is a step in the right direction.
But the council putting Villegas’ contract on the consent agenda at its Dec. 2 meeting was misstep that could and should have been avoided. That responsibility falls on the Hutchinson City Council, led by Mayor Stacy Goss. If our staff hadn’t been paying close attention to the council’s agenda, Villegas’ pay increase could have easily gone unnoticed, and nothing would have been said.
We believe he is deserving of a pay increase for the job he’s done as city manager so far, but our issue centers on the lack of openness and transparency in which it was given, along with the fact that he wasn’t given a contract extension in addition to his pay increase. That falls on the council, not Villegas.
In an ideal world, Mayor Goss and the council would have made Villegas’ pay increase a separate item on the council’s Dec. 2 agenda and then explained their reasoning for giving him that increase. Presumably, the contract was discussed in executive session, but no public comments were made during the city council meetings to explain the pay increase or the lack of an extension to his contract that expires on Dec. 31 of next year.
The public deserves a public statement from the council. Villegas also deserves at least a one-year extension on his current contract because of the excellent work he’s done to make Hutchinson a better place to live and work.
The city manager market is extremely competitive these days, and in order to retain highly qualified and capable individuals like Villegas, the City of Hutchinson needs to offer more than one-year contracts in addition to providing competitive compensation packages. Three-year contracts should be the standard, because it takes one year for a new city manager to fully get their feet on the ground; the second year to implement any changes they believe need to be made; and by the third year, the results should be evident one way or the other. At that point, the council can make an informed decision on whether or not to extend beyond the initial three years.
College football fans should be familiar with contract extensions. Schools often give big raises to coaches who have outperformed their contracts, and those raises come with longer contracts, because they want them to stay and build on the success they have had.
If the council maintains its one-year city manager contract policy and Villegas leaves at some point, finding someone as capable qualified as he is will be challenging, if not downright impossible. The residents of Hutchand inson deserve excellent city managers, and it’s the council’s responsibility to do its best to make it happen.
We don’t like being Scrooge right before Christmas, but in this case, a loud bah humbug is in order. The Hutchinson City Council deserves a lump of coal in its stocking for its handling of the pay increase for Villegas, who rightfully deserved one. We hope he gets all the presents he wants under his Christmas tree this year. We hope the council learns from this and does better next time.
– The Hutchinson Tribune Editorial Board